Dayton Moore: “The Process” is 8-10 years

Dayton Moore has taken a lot of guff from Royals fans in the past couple of years as a result of his constant exhortations for them to “trust The Process,” which is the term he uses to refer to his plan to rebuild the Royals. The problems with this? “The Process” is rather amorphus, inasmuch as one year it appears that the team is going with youth and the next year they sign a bunch of mediocre free agents. No one really knows what “The Process” is.

But the worst part is no one really knows how long “The Process” is supposed to take. That is, they didn’t until today, when Dayton Moore coughed up a deadline:

“Our goal by 2013, 2014 is to have the majority of our 25-man roster be homegrown players. That’s what we’re shooting for, that’s been the long-term plan all along . . . Look what Colorado did, look what Minnesota did, look what the New York Yankees did. It took the Yankees seven years. They committed to it in ’89, and finally in ’96 they won with homegrown guys. I’m not talking about getting to .500, I’m talking about winning the World Series when I say eight to 10 years.”

Well, I think he’s backdating the Yankees’ rebuilding a bit, as things there really didn’t get going until Gene Michael was hired in 1991 and began to rebuild the team’s player development model and change the team from a free-agent pariah to a free-agent player. If I had to put a date on that I’d say maybe 1992, when Danny Tartabull was signed and Derek Jeter was drafted.

But fine, let’s give Moore his eight or ten years. Royals fans have been waiting this long. What’s several more?